Super Quick Sandwich Bread For Busy Days

On Sundays, Claire and I like to bake her favorite sandwich bread for the coming week’s school lunches. It’s a sweet routine. We mix up the dough right away in the morning. During the first two-hour rising, we all go to the neighborhood farmer’s market. (We’re fortunate to have a year-round market here in West Seattle, and I love the winter fare–calmer than in the summer, the stalls are fewer and full of quiet things like cheeses, cider, and chard. I figure if the farmers are nice enough to stand there in the freezing cold Seattle drizzle, the least we can do is turn up and buy a squash.) We get home just in time to pan the bread, letting it rise a second time while we eat lunch.

Molasses gives this bread a beautiful golden color without adding too much sweetness.

There are times, of course, when we just can’t be around to hover over the lovely pattern of rising-panning-rising-baking. But my daughter seems to have become spoiled on home-baked bread, and declares any store-bought sandwich bread to taste “like chicken feed.” (How does she know what chicken feed tastes like? She won’t say…). For such occasions, we have been enjoying a whole wheat quick bread adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking that, while not quite as good as our favorite yeasted breads, is still pretty darn tasty. This bread keeps well, and though there is a little brown sugar and molasses in it, it’s not too sweet, and has a rustic, old-fashioned flavor–it tastes just as good with a nutty cheddar as it does with our homemade peanut butter and blackberry jam.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, soda, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat in the molasses. Add 1/2 the flour mixture, then about half the milk, then the rest of the flour, then the last of the milk and the orange juice, mixing until moistened after each addition. If using a stand mixer, scrape the sides of the bowl as needed throughout the entire process. Stir in the nuts.

Transfer the batter to a buttered or oiled 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake in a 300 degree oven for an hour and 10-15 minutes. Check the bread in an hour–if it seems to be too dark on top, cover it lightly with foil for the last bit of baking. Let the finished bread sit 20 minutes before removing it from the pan, then allow it to cool completely before slicing.

The long baking time at this lower temperature allows the bran to become thoroughly moistened by the wet ingredients, making a wonderful, tender bread. I love a hunk of this bread toasted plain with my morning coffee. It’s dense, so slice thinly for sandwiches. Enjoy!

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16 Comments so far ↓

Thanks for this. Have you ever tried baking any gluten-free breads? It’s not something I’d recommend – it’s much more difficult to get a decent bread – but if you ever happen to find a recipe for a decent GF sandwich bread, please share. We haven’t managed it yet.

Yum! I made this recipe today. I baked it into three mini loaves so that I could substitute raisins for the walnuts in the two loaves that will go to my daughter’s nut-free preschool. It will make a perfect tea snack tomorrow afternoon. Thank you so much for the inspiration and recipe!

I wonder if you ever posted more detailed plans/photos of your chicken coop? We are working on plans to build our first coop this spring and would love to benefit from the wisdom and experience of others.

Hi Lyanda I hope you are having a wonderful day. We will be making bread today, and your recipe looks great. We are new to Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, but not King County as I’m a lifer In fact, Kelly and I were in the same grade at Panther Lake…small world.

I am so glad that you have written this book about crows. It will be interesting to learn more about them.

Thank you Lyanda for sharing some your many talents with us. I hope that you and your family have a spectacular year.

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The Tangled Nest celebrates the "new home economics"--an essential twining of home, garden, food, craft, and co-existence with the wild, natural world.
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